To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of fantasy football, The Athletic is reviewing the best fantasy players and fantasy seasons in NFL history.
A detailed overview of the system used to grade historical fantasy performance can be found in our greatest fantasy players of all-time introduction page, but here’s a quick summary.
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Fantasy player performance is era-adjusted so that players who dominated during lower scoring eras can compete versus players who racked up huge point totals in higher scoring eras.
After these adjustments are made, players are then given credit for having a starter-caliber season (one point), a quality season (one point), an impact campaign (1.5 points) or being an elite starter (two points). These points stack and are measured in both non-PPR and PPR and serve as the basis for determining who are the best fantasy players in NFL history.
Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, let’s look at the best fantasy players in San Francisco 49ers team history!
(Note: the numbers listed below are for the player’s performance while on the 49ers.)
All-time fantasy starting lineup
QB: Joe Montana/Steve Young
RB: Roger Craig
RB: Joe Perry
WR: Jerry Rice
WR: Billy Wilson
TE: Brent Jones
SuperFLEX: Frankie Albert
Quarterback — Joe Montana/Steve Young
This is easily the closest race at any position for any team in this entire series, as Montana and Young both had stellar numbers in every career points category.
Montana’s career points:
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 9 | 7 | 10.5 | 4 | 9 | 7 | 10.5 | 4 | 61 |
Young’s career points:
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 8 | 7 | 7.5 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7.5 | 8 | 61 |
Montana finished first, second, or third in QB fantasy points seven times and added a No. 5 ranking in 1981 and a No. 7 ranking in 1988. His 54 career points in the 1980s led that decade, as he had a 12-point advantage over Dan Marino’s 42-point second place finish.
Young and Aaron Rodgers are the only quarterbacks to place first in QB fantasy scoring on four occasions. Young racked up three straight years as the No. 1 fantasy QB in 1992-94, which is something that only three other quarterbacks have accomplished (Tobin Rote, Johnny Unitas, and Brett Favre).
Running back — Roger Craig
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 7 | 4 | 1.5 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 1.5 | 2 | 29 |
It’s amazing that Craig isn’t in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as he was one of the dominant running backs of his era. He was a fantasy RB2 in his rookie season of 1983 and then ran off six straight years as a RB1. Craig ranked second in non-PPR points and first in PPR in both 1985 and 1988. That 1985 campaign ranks as the best fantasy season by a 49ers running back, as Craig racked up 292 non-PPR points and 383.6 PPR points. Those are both still the highest ever posted by a San Francisco running back and the PPR mark ranks second in club history at any position.
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Running back — Joe Perry
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 9 | 4 | 1.5 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 25.5 |
The man known as “The Jet” tallied back-to-back seasons as the No. 1 fantasy RB in 1953 and 1954, thus becoming only the second pure fantasy RB to achieve this feat. Perry also posted Top 5 campaigns in 1949 and 1952 and started his 49ers career with seven straight RB1- or RB2-caliber seasons.
Wide receiver — Jerry Rice
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 14 | 11 | 13.5 | 4 | 14 | 11 | 10.5 | 10 | 88 |
Rice is arguably the best fantasy player of all-time, as no player has ever been as consistently dominant as Rice over an 11-year span. From 1986-96, Rice ranked first or second in WR PPR points in every season except 1988, when he ranked third in that category. His non-PPR rankings in that span were equally impressive, as Rice placed first eight times, second two times, and fourth on one occasion.
Only Don Hutson had a higher non-PPR impact point total in league history, and many of Hutson’s numbers were posted during World War II when the NFL was short-staffed due to players serving in in the war. Hutson and Fran Tarkenton are also the only players with more total career points than Rice’s 93 (Tarkenton 104, Hutson 97.5).
Wide receiver — Billy Wilson
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 8 | 5 | 4.5 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 4.5 | 4 | 41 |
Wilson’s fantasy numbers would be the best on many NFL teams, as he was a Top 9 PPR WR in seven straight seasons (1953-59) and finished in the Top 3 in PPR WR scoring on four occasions (1953, 1955, 1956, and 1957). Wilson’s 1953 campaign ranks as the best SuperFlex season in club history, as he scored 194 PPR points in a year when only 10 ends tallied 150+ PPR points and only 16 scored 100+ points.
Tight end — Brent Jones
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 6 | 5 | 1.5 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 23.5 |
Playing on a team that had tons of firepower kind of left Jones as a forgotten man in this offense, but his fantasy numbers more than hold up. He was a Top 4 PPR TE five times from 1989-1994 and a Top 6 non-PPR TE on five occasions in that same span.
For those wondering, George Kittle currently has 11.5 career points, so 2-3 more strong seasons could vault him over Jones for the top spot on this list.
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SuperFlex — Frankie Albert
| Starter | Quality | Impact | Elite | PPR Str | PPR Qual | PPR Impact | PPR Elite | Career Points |
| 5 | 5 | 7.5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7.5 | 6 | 47 |
Albert would not have made it on to this list had the Montana/Young race not been ruled a tie, but Albert did more than enough to earn his spot on this roster. His 47 career points ranks tied for 23rd among quarterbacks and he was a Top 4 scorer at this position from 1946-1949. Albert’s 260.6 points in 1948 stood as the 49ers single season QB scoring record until Joe Montana broke it in 1983 and it still ranks as the ninth highest QB scoring mark by a San Francisco passer.
All-time best era-adjusted fantasy seasons
QB: Y.A. Tittle, 1953 (169.9 points)
RB: Roger Craig, 1985 (292 non-PPR, 383.6 PPR)
WR: Gordie Soltau, 1952 (152.4 non-PPR, 207.4 PPR)
TE: Ted Kwalick, 1972 (128 non-PPR, 168.2 PPR)
SuperFLEX: Billy Wilson, 1953 (143 non-PPR, 194 PPR)
(Top photo: Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
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